As I'm Leaving
by bluelimit
Summary: Detective Jesse Beaudry left Port Charles for Miami years ago. He thought he'd left his past behind him. He was wrong. JesseMaxie
1. Chapter 1

So this is my first real attempt at a Jexie fanfiction, other than a one-part story I wrote a while ago (One Boy, One Girl). It takes place in the future, but with flashbacks. I'm anxious to know all of your thoughts and feelings, so I'm going to try something that I've seen other people do here and say that new chapters will not be posted until there have been a significant number of replies. Say, at least ten per chapter. So read, reply, and most importantly, enjoy!

-Sky

Chapter One

_Miami, Florida, 2011_

"You get your slimy hands off me! I told you, I don't do no slimy, dirty old men," the barely-dressed young woman snarled at the middle-aged man who guided her bodily across the room. She spotted the young, handsome man walking toward them and smiled at him. "You're more my taste, baby, you want to cavity search me?"

The young man grinned. "Maybe another time." He nodded to the older gentleman. "Fun night, Frank?"

"Morning, Jesse," Frank answered good-naturedly as he continued to pull the handcuffed woman toward the holding cells.

The phone rang on a nearby desk. Jesse grabbed it.

"Miami Police Department. Detective Beaudry. Hey. Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell him." He hung up the phone. "Hey Cap, Morales got another tip. He's on the way in."

Captain John Stillman looked up, beckoning the young detective into his office.

"Beaudry."

"Sir."

"Beaudry," the captain repeated, "whatever Morales brings in, I want you on it tonight. I'm going to assign you and a few of the other officers to cover some of the locations that have been cited and let's clean up this trash."

Jesse nodded. "Has it been determined if they're all connected to one pimp or just a spread of lonely working girls?"

"Nothing's official, but it seems to be a ring."

Jesse nodded. "Just tell me what to do."

"You're going to let one of those girls pick you up," Captain Stillman told him.

"You want me to…"

"Well, don't get too excited, Beaudry. I'm not giving you an assignment to bang a hooker. Just do what you need to do to get her to talk."

Jesse nodded. "All right."

"I want this cleaned up, Beaudry."

Jesse nodded again. "I'll do what I can, sir."

"Good man."

"Thank you, sir."

"Now get out."

"Yes sir."

_12:09 a.m. _

Jesse waited by the black Honda, parked in the shadows.

A scantily-dressed woman leaned against the abandoned storefront window across the street, posing seductively.

As he began to move out of the shadows toward her, the light from a passing car hit her, illuminating her silver bracelet with a twisted heart on her left wrist.

Jesse's mouth went dry. Stepping back into the darkness, he watched her. Her hair was jet black, but he knew it was probably a wig. He let his eyes roam her body, remembering the lines and curves.

"Jesus Christ," he swore under his breath.

Opening the car door, he reached into the glove compartment, pulling out his gun and tucking it into the back of his pants, concealing the weapon beneath his dark leather jacket.

Staying in the shadows, he ran until he was out of sight, dashed across the street, circling around into the alley behind her.

Moving quietly, he drew the gun from his back, coming up behind her.

He grabbed her around the neck, pushing the gun into her back.

"Scream and I swear I'll shoot you dead," he ordered gruffly, dropping his voice as low as it would go.

She whimpered and tried to turn. He yanked her roughly.

"Don't try to look at me!"

Holding the gun in her back, he used his other hand to yank the silky black scarf from around her neck.

"Tie it around your eyes," he demanded.

"Okay, okay," she panted, obliging. Reaching around her, he tied the long hanging ends around her wrists, effectively shackling her.

They were alone. No cars passed. No other person walked nearby.

Jesse shoved her roughly. "Move. Now. Not a god damn word."

He hurried her across the street, opened the drivers' door and shoved her across the seat.

He pushed her head so that it faced away from him.

"I'll do anything you want," she begged, "just please don't hurt me."

He knew she was too stubborn to let herself be the victim. It was only a matter of time before she started to fight back.

Using one hand to start the car, he held the barrel of his gun to her head with the other, shoving the cold steel against her temple.

As he started to drive, he kept his eyes on the road, glancing at her every few seconds. He could hear her frightened, gasping breaths.

Pulling on to an empty stretch of highway, he accelerated to 75 miles an hour, driving the dark road.

Lowering the gun, he placed it underneath his seat.

She whimpered.

Jesse reached over with his free hand, releasing the knots around her wrists.

"I won't hurt you," he said slowly, no longer disguising his voice. "You can take off the blindfold."

Barely breathing, she pulled the scarf from her face, turning to look at him, her eyes filled with angry, terrified tears.

"Jesse?" she asked, shocked, disbelieving.

He offered a small hint of a smile. "Hi Maxie. It's been a long time."


	2. Chapter 2

Like most writers I thrive on reviews and really want to know what you guys think, not just "good job!" or "this sucks!" so everyone who reads this, please share your thoughts! I guarantee no updates otherwise!!

Chapter Two

_Port Charles, New York, 2007_

"A son?" Maxie's voice was shaking and was louder than she realized. "You have a son?"

Jesse took the piece of paper and the photograph from her shaking hand, not even caring that she had violated his privacy. In her eyes, with this secret, he had violated her trust.

And that, he knew, was worse than her opening his bureau drawer.

"Please, just listen," he begged. "Just let me explain."

She stared at him, her eyes brimming. "You have a child, Jesse. You're a father. You hid that from me. How do you explain that?"

"I fathered a child," he corrected. "I'm not a father."

"Semantics," she screamed, and he hated himself for how much he'd hurt her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm not a part of his life," Jesse told her. "He doesn't know about me. Mary Anne, his mother, sends me a letter and a picture once a year. There's no other contact."

Maxie just glared at him, the weight of his secret crushing her already fragile heart.

"You told me you loved me," she accused.

"I do," he vowed. "Maxie, I swear I do."

She shook her head, not believing him, her faith tarnished.

"The same way you loved Mary Anne?"

She spit out the other woman's name as if it tasted bitter in her mouth.

Jesse hung his head. Nothing shamed him more than this truth.

"I didn't love her," he whispered, his voice shaking. "I never should have been with her."

"Why?" Maxie demanded bitterly, hating that Jesse had a connection to this woman stronger than anything between the two of them. "Because she left you and you had to settle for me?"

"Because she was my brother's girlfriend!" Jesse screamed, letting the sob that he'd been trying to hold back break free.

Maxie stared. Jesse felt the tears of shame creep down his cheeks, not bothering to wipe them away, not caring that they made him seem less manful.

"Will was in love with Mary Anne from the time he was thirteen," Jesse began. "He was going to propose to her after they graduated. He was saving up to get her a ring."

He swiped at his eyes.

"What happened?" Maxie asked quietly.

"I was jealous," Jesse confessed. "My parents loved Mary Anne. They'd never liked any girl I'd been with. I was sick of being the bad son, of wishing they could love me the way they loved Will."

"Like how I felt about Georgie."

Jesse nodded. "But you didn't try to hurt Georgie the same way I tried to hurt Will. Did I tell you he was a virgin when he died?"

She shook her head. "No."

He smiled, a twisted, ironic smile. "I lost it when I was twelve, at a party, with a crowd of people in the next room, to a girl I barely knew and barely liked. Will was going to wait until he married Mary Anne. He wanted to honor her by waiting for her. How's that for different?"

Maxie just looked hurt. "What happened?"

"A few days before Christmas, I was out and I ran into Mary Anne with some of her girlfriends. They were teasing her about being a virgin, in that teenage girl way, mean but pretending it's not. I could tell they were hurting her feelings, so I offered her a ride home."

"That was nice of you."

Jesse's stomach turned. He felt nauseous.

"No," he whispered. "It wasn't. See, I told her the same lies those girls were telling her and more. That guys liked girls who put out, and that…" he pressed a hand to his mouth, feeling sick, "that my brother didn't take her to bed because he didn't want her."

He looked at Maxie, expecting to see disgust in her eyes.

She was crying.

"Will wanted her more than anything," Jesse continued. "But he wanted to do right by her. And I was so damn screwed up that I wanted to hurt him so that I wouldn't feel so bad about myself and everything I'd messed up. So I made Mary Anne feel like there was something wrong with her, like she wasn't enough, like she wasn't pretty…"

"Was she?" Maxie asked. A woman always wants to know.

"Yeah," Jesse answered sadly. "Not beautiful and sexy like you, but she had a look like she should be in a soap commercial. Kind of like Elizabeth Spencer."

Maxie nodded.

"I made her feel like she had something to prove," Jesse went on, hating himself. "She kissed me first. Afterwards, I told her she could never tell anyone, because it would hurt Will's feelings and she'd lose him." He pressed his mouth shut, wanting to scream or throw up, or both. "Ten days later, he died. Five weeks after that, Mary Anne found out she was pregnant. Once my parents knew, they couldn't even look at me. So I've left. And I've never seen Jamie, except in pictures."

"That's his name," Maxie asked quietly, "Jamie?"

Jesse nodded. "James Thomas Sutton. He's three."

That was all. He didn't have any words left in him. He stood up, needing to move, to go somewhere, anywhere.

Maxie caught his hand, rising to meet him the way she had nearly two years ago, hiding out in that old cabin.

Wordlessly, she kissed him as she had that summer, long, soft and sad. He responded, pulling her close, needing the shelter of her kisses to protect him from the deluge of memories, of shame, to protect him from the man he used to be, the man he was still running from.

She wrenched from his grasp, pulling back so he could see the tears flooding her eyes.

"We're over."

He felt something collapse inside of him. "What? Maxie, no!"

"You kept this from me." She was whispering, barely holding on to control.

"It's the past," he begged. "Why does it have to be the end of us?" He took her hands. "Don't do this, Maxie."

"It's not just the past," she said, shaking her head. "It's the most important thing that ever happened to you, and you couldn't trust me with it." She sobbed. "I can't be with someone who can't trust me."

"I do trust you," he insisted. "More than anyone."

He could see the pain in her blue eyes. "But not enough."

She turned toward the door.

"Maxie, please! I love you!"

"I love you." Her voice wavered. "Don't follow me."

"Maxie…"

"I mean it, Jesse," she insisted. "If you love me, if you care about me at all, just leave me alone."

And then she left.

And he was alone.


End file.
